US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia recently opined that it’s “politically effective” to compare homosexuality to bestiality and murder.
Scalia made the controversial comments on Monday to a Princeton University audience, reports The Associated Press . When asked by a gay student why it’s necessary to draw parallels between laws banning LGBT sex and laws banning bestiality and murder, the conservative judge responded “I don’t think it’s necessary, but I think it’s effective,” adding that legislatures are well within their rights to ban acts they view as immoral.
Scalia has been touring the country promoting his new book, Reading Law . While he said that he himself wasn’t comparing homosexuality to bestiality or murder, laws against these acts serve the same purpose as “moral safeguards on society” reports The Raw Story .
“It’s a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the ‘reduction to the absurd,’” said Scalia. “If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?”
The student did not accept Scalia’s answer, and said that the judge’s previous writings on the topic of homosexuality “dehumanize” LGBTs. Scalia responded by mocking individuals who consider the US Constitution a “living document” that is flexible and able to be changed over time as new cultural concerns arise.
“It isn’t a living document,” he said. “It’s dead, dead, dead, dead.” Scalia added that people who perceive the Constitution that way are missing the point.
“My Constitution is a very flexible one,” he said. However, “There’s nothing in there about abortion. It’s up to the citizens. The same with the death penalty.”
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the DOMA and Proposition 8 cases in March of 2013 .
What do you think? Does Scalia have a point, albeit a crude one, regarding legislation or are his comments so offensive that he shouldn’t have even said them in the first place? Sound off!